


if gods must be men

by talionprinciple (Triskai)



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Oral Sex, Religious Themes, dissociation/unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-08-22 01:26:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16588109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskai/pseuds/talionprinciple
Summary: Brador's love is devotion. Laurence knows this.





	1. Chapter 1

no man,if men are gods;but if gods must  
be men,the sometimes only man is this  
[…]  
coward,clown,traitor,idiot,dreamer,beast—  
[…]  
—who’ll solve the depths of horror to defend  
a sunbeam’s architecture with his life:  
and carve immortal jungles of despair  
to hold a mountain’s heartbeat in his hand 

\-- e.e.cummings 

 

Laurence is elbow-deep in the stomach of a beast when Brador finds him. The stench of the blood hits him hard, pungent and thick even from the threshold of the lab, and Brador drops the jars of blood he’d brought up from the labyrinths and rushes to Laurence’s side. The dark-furred creature is sprawled out on one of the patients’ cots – the rest are empty, sheets neatly folded, although Brador knows they had all been full a few days ago when he’d left – and it’s been gutted, blood and viscera spilling out over the starchy white sheets. Ragged, torn cuts on its neck and chest tell Brador how it was killed. By contrast, the incision Laurence has stuck his hand into is as precise as the scalpel that made it.

Brador realizes he is breathing hard, adrenaline making his heart race. Something has gone horribly wrong. This thing shouldn’t be here, out of the tombs, in the school, in this clean and sterile lab. Next to Laurence. 

Laurence has not turned his head to look at him.

“Laurence,” Brador says carefully. “What is that?”

“Brador. Shut the door, will you? I’ve no mind to be discovered.” Laurence withdraws his hand with a disgusting squelching sound, fingers wrapped around a gory prize. His hand and forearm are extraordinarily bloody, coated a uniform dark red interspersed with clumps of flesh and fur. Brador is mesmerized. He’s never seen Laurence like this. The man isn’t even wearing gloves.

He’s been standing still too long. Laurence turns his head, just so, and Brador sees the wet glint of his eye as he drops the bit of viscera in a steel bowl.

“What is it, Brador?” The irritated edge of Laurence’s voice rests against Brador’s neck like a blade. “Shut the door and I’ll explain.”

Brador goes and shuts the door. There are bloody fingerprints on the inside handle. He glances at Laurence – who is still not looking at him – and then around the room. It’s completely empty. The pieces are coming together. How many patients had Laurence had? Eight, ten? Brador wonders how many are still alive. Now that he’s grown acclimated to the stench of the beast’s blood, he can smell something sour underneath. He takes in a deep breath. Vinegar? The whole situation feels surreal, like he’s in a dream.

“Gehrman slew the beast, but not before it got to the patients,” Laurence offers, suddenly. “You must have been wondering.”

Brador returns to Laurence’s side. He’s picked up the scalpel in his clean hand and is making a vertical incision on the beast’s neck. Brador sees it as if through a haze. He latches onto Laurence’s words. Gehrman. Byrgenwerth’s prized tomb prospector. The man casts a long shadow, so much that even Laurence requested him at times, though Brador is as good as his personal prospector. An odd childish impulse strikes him; Brador thinks: _I should have been there. It should have been me._

Laurence doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of response, because he says: “Did you ever think about the silverbeasts in the labyrinth?”

When Laurence doesn’t continue, Brador prods, “Think what?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Where they came from. How they ended up down there, mixed in with the Pthumerians.” The scalpel continues its steady path, opening up the beast’s throat. “I have a theory, but it’s unpleasant.

“When you prospectors brought back the first live silverbeast – I don’t suppose you were on that expedition – something struck me… Their faces, Brador. Their faces look almost human. It was the nose that tipped me off, not at all like a snout, or even the flat muzzle of a monkey. And I thought… could it be that the Pthumerians engaged in communion with the Great Ones that they guarded? Like the eldritch Truth that hollowed out the Pthumerians’ minds, might the blood of the Great Ones contain such power that it overwhelmed its host?”

“You’re saying the blood did this to…” Brador gestures at the beast.

“Yes.” Laurence puts the scalpel down. He sits back and looks at Brador, _finally_ looks at him. His pupils are narrow in the lab’s bright light. His brown irises are warm and dark.

Brador feels himself start to shake. There’s a sensation in his chest like a piece of scrap metal dropped down an elevator shaft, echoing noisily all the way down; he thinks he is afraid, but in a far away place. Or perhaps he is angry. Laurence is watching him, still, with those warm dark eyes. That dream-like feeling returns with a vengeance, sweeping away everything in the room but Laurence’s calm brown eyes. Brador doesn’t understand how he can say something so horrible while wearing such a placid look.

Brador says, “I’ve taken the blood. _You_ gave it to me.”

“I know, Brador.”

He should be angry, but he isn’t. The smell of blood rises up all around him. Blood on Laurence’s hand, blood scrubbed away with vinegar, blood in Brador’s mouth where he’s bitten the inside of his cheek without thinking. It’s coppery and sweet; it makes him want to vomit.

“You knew all this time.”

“It was always a possibility.” Laurence is not smiling and he is not frowning. His expression shows nothing much at all. Brador thinks he would feel better if Laurence were weeping. But here they both are, dry-eyed, watching each other, barely breathing.

“You’ve taken the blood as well.”

Laurence smiles, sadly. “Yes.”

Brador takes in a steadying breath. Then another. And another, before he gives up on steadying himself.

“Will we become…” There is a tremor in Brador’s voice, and he hates himself for it. “…like that?”

“Not if I have any say in it.” Laurence looks down at the beast again. “You see why I kept this hidden. Master Willem would have denounced me. Will denounce me, once this gets out. There’s no hiding it now; the other subjects are dead, every last one of them. But I can’t let him stop my research, not when it shows such promise, and especially not when the blood is in us both. I have to understand it. If I can find out what causes the transformation, I can stop it. Which is why I need to know you’re with me, Brador. I need you to help me.”

“How? If you cannot convince the provost to support your research, no one can.”

“I don’t need Willem’s support,” Laurence snarls, fingers abruptly tightening in his lap. His outburst fades as quickly as it arrives, his face smoothing back into a neutral expression. “I’ll leave the college. There are people in Yharnam who will sponsor me, but I need someone to come with me. Someone I can trust, someone I can rely on. You’ll help me, won’t you, Brador?”

“I… of course.” Heat rises to Brador’s face. “You know I’ve always been loyal to you, Laurence.”

Laurence gives him a curious look. “You have, haven’t you?”

Brador instantly feels that he’s overstepped some unseen boundary. Laurence is studying his face and Brador wishes he could draw the words back in, curl up like the pillbugs that sometimes worm their way into the college and hide all the soft parts of himself. For such a slight, almost sickly man, Laurence has an immense presence, so much that Brador sometimes feels as if he’s being held in the palm of Laurence’s hand, being turned this way and that, inspected for blemishes. Whatever it is that Laurence is looking for, he seems to find it now.

“It’s decided, then. I will do my best to buy us time, and we will prepare in secret to leave the college. We must gather supplies – starting with the blood you brought back. I will need enough to last until I am able to secure my own supply. Bring as much as you can from your expeditions without drawing undue attention. Can you do that for me, Brador?”

“It won’t be a problem,” Brador assures him, feeling lightheaded.

Laurence smiles, and it’s so fond and genuine that Brador nearly forgets what they’re talking about. He takes Brador’s hand in both of his – one tacky with blood, one clean and warm – and looks up at him. There’s a light in Laurence’s eyes that makes Brador believe Laurence can do anything.

“I’ve always been able to depend on you,” Laurence says softly.

 

 

The bodies of the other patients are found four days later, when they’ve started to burst and fester in the undergrowth. Half the college puts their ear against the door of Willem’s office during the ensuing shouting match, trying to catch the provost’s favorite finally getting scolded, muttering to each other and celebrating in jealous vindication. They treat the entire thing like a spectacle, clapping each other on the back and exchanging bets. Brador quietly hates every one of them.

Most of the crowd has dispersed by the time Laurence emerges, red-eyed and wild. Brador walks Laurence back to his room in silence. As always, Laurence’s bad mood is palpable, a hair-raising electric feeling like an oncoming storm. Brador wishes he knew how to comfort Laurence. 

The moment the door clicks shut Laurence throws himself onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. When he doesn’t move for a while, Brador finds an empty patch of floor amidst the clutter of books and jars and takes a seat. There is a chair, but it feels like sacrilege to sit in it, somehow – it is Laurence’s chair, after all. And his position on the ground brings a strange satisfaction.

“We have to leave,” Laurence says, suddenly.

“Now?” Brador jumps to his feet.

“No—I meant, Willem said he won’t let me stay if I continue my experiments.” Laurence rolls over and blinks up at Brador owlishly. A shadow seems to pass over his face, like a cloud briefly across the sun. “Were you truly going to pack your bags on my whim?”

“Well, of course.” Somehow Brador feels as if this is the wrong answer. “If you left, there’d be no reason for me to stay.”

“Really?” Laurence pushes himself up on his elbows, his long black hair unraveling onto his sheets. The skin around his eyes is red and puffy from emotion but his gaze is sharp as ever. (This whole situation is entirely too intimate, but Laurence is _watching_ him and Brador is a butterfly pinned and spread on display.) “You’ve made a life here, haven’t you? A skilled tomb prospector like yourself is paid well. And you owe your life to the college’s medicine.”

“I’ve paid off my debt to the college, and then some. This place has never been a home to me.” Brador hesitates, turning words over in his mind. How to say what he means without revealing anything of his heart. He’s always been distant, and he thinks that’s how he wants to stay: a dogged half-there specter. “I was already prepared to leave, anyway. Wasn’t that the plan?”

“Oh, I know, but something Willem said to me got me thinking.” Laurence lets himself fall back on the mattress with a soft _whumpf_. “You’re quite the loyal man, aren’t you Brador? I don’t suppose I’ve ever met anyone else like you. It’s hard to wrap my mind around, to be honest.”

Brador says nothing, but angles his body away from Laurence, his hands curling into fists. There is a tension in his body, tugging on his spine, a restless anxiety like watching a string being slowly pulled taut and waiting for the inevitable snap. He wishes Laurence would leave these things as formless ghosts. Saying things aloud makes them real. He knows this because every one of Laurence’s words digs in like hooks in his flesh. 

Laurence watches Brador and laughs, wetly. “And so skittish. Have you got a handkerchief?”

Brador hands it over and waits patiently as Laurence blows his nose and wipes his eyes. When he sits up, he looks again as he always does, keen and sharpened to a purpose, save for the lingering redness around his eyes. The world rights itself, snaps back into place.

“Tell me, Brador, do you believe in God?”

Whatever he expected Laurence to say, it wasn’t that. Brador deflects on reflex. “That’s a difficult question to ask a man.”

“But I am asking it.” Laurence sounds amused; he is not smiling. “It’s been quite the topic of debate since the discovery of Ebrietas within the tombs. Whether there is one God, or many gods, or none at all. Surely you have an opinion.”

Brador is very still for a moment. (Laurence is watching him think, which makes him nervous, like many things about Laurence make him nervous.) Cautiously, he says: “I attended one of Provost Willem’s lectures on the subject.”

Laurence scoffs, but lets him continue.

“He spoke of the nature of the gods… their capacity for sympathy and forgiveness, how grandly they indulge us, like elephants looking down on ants. I saw nothing like that down in the tombs. What I found was a beast.”

“Ebrietas, a beast? I’d say you’re half right, which is half more than anyone else. Perhaps Willem could do with a trip down into the depths.” Laurence is smiling now, but the shadow of his foul mood clings to that smile, turning it sharp and ragged. “He thinks to understand them, to know their minds, and that is his first mistake. Listen carefully, Brador. If the gods exist – and I think they do, although not like Willem envisions – they tend to us like fields of wheat. You’d no sooner sympathize with a tomato, or forgive a stinging nettle, than they’d do such a thing with us. The idea of a benevolent god is the delusion of a child afraid of the dark.”

Brador doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Laurence is undeterred.

“Pthumerian relics depict many more creatures like Ebrietas. Great Ones, we’ve begun to call them, since no one can agree on whether they constitute gods. I think I am close to finding one, Brador. Our time left at the college is short, but before I go, there is a place we should visit. A little fishing hamlet by the ocean that we’ve been in contact with for some time now.”

“They supply the arcane parasites,” Brador ventures, dredging up a foggy memory of the agreement.

“Yes, well, not just that, but I’ve been keeping it secret.” Laurence leans forward, mattress creaking. “I told Willem that I’ve halted my experiments, but that’s not quite true. I haven’t taken any new patients at the college, but I’ve been administering the blood in that hamlet for weeks.”

“What? What if they turn into…”

“That’s why I need you to come with me this time. I need to collect data before Willem cuts me off from the place; the more data I have, the closer I’ll be to understanding the transformation. I’ve asked Gehrman and Maria as well. The three of you combined can handle anything that happens.”

“I suppose so,” Brador says dubiously.

Laurence doesn’t notice Brador’s lack of enthusiasm, or chooses to ignore it – when it comes to Laurence, the two are much the same. “There’s something of even greater importance in that hamlet, or there might be – it’s only a hunch, really, which is why I won’t speak of it now. But the fact of the matter is: I must go.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

Laurence laughs, not unkindly.

“Oh, Brador,” he says. “I knew you would say that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this work will have three parts; the rest has been roughly outlined. my writing speed ranges from "glacially slow" to "feverish" so the next parts will get done sooner or later.
> 
> lore notes: some small liberties were taken with canon, particularly about the silverbeasts, which are only found in loran chalices.
> 
> full text of the poem:  
> no man,if men are gods;but if gods must  
> be men,the sometimes only man is this  
> (most common,for each anguish is his grief;  
> and,for his joy is more than joy,most rare) 
> 
> a fiend,if fiends speak truth;if angels burn 
> 
> by their own generous completely light,  
> an angel;or(as various worlds he’ll spurn  
> rather than fail immeasurable fate)  
> coward,clown,traitor,idiot,dreamer,beast— 
> 
> such was a poet and shall be and is 
> 
> —who’ll solve the depths of horror to defend  
> a sunbeam’s architecture with his life:  
> and carve immortal jungles of despair  
> to hold a mountain’s heartbeat in his hand


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating bump to E for Explicit Sexual Content. i got a little carried away,  
> this could probably use more editing but i dont want to so.

The divine psyche is as far above the human as the animal psyche reaches down into subhuman depths.

C.G. Jung

 

They almost make it out of the gates before Willem catches them. He’s moving across the paved road with an uneven, stumbling gait, leaning heavily on his cane, and calling out to them in his nasally voice. Laurence stops, and so Brador does as well, although he would much rather have left the old provost behind. Brador watches Willem curiously; he can scarcely remember the last time he saw the provost walking.

“Laurence,” Willem says, as soon as he doesn’t have to shout. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“It’s no business of yours.” Laurence’s face is stony in the moonlight. “Or do you claim to be my keeper?”

Brador shifts uneasily. It’s not like Laurence to be so openly antagonistic, let alone towards Willem. The man is like a father to him, Laurence has said so himself in the past. Willem, on the other hand, doesn’t seem surprised by Laurence’s tone. Only tired.

“Why do you rebuff me at every turn?” Willem sighs. “The blood is dangerous, Laurence.”

“You think I don’t know that? I’ve been studying—”

“Quiet!” Willem slams his cane against the ground. Laurence recoils, his mouth pressed into a thin bloodless line. “Listen to me. I’m trying to protect you from making choices you’ll come to regret. The power offered by the blood is tainted, irrevocably. You musn’t trust it. If you work with the old blood, you must _fear_ the old blood – and I do not think you fear it.”

“I’m no longer a child, Willem. I know the dangers. You were too timid to get your hands dirty with the stuff. What reason do _you_ have to fear?” Laurence laughs, a short, ugly sound. “The terror of the old blood is within me, closer than my own heartbeat. I do fear it. That is why I cannot let it go.”

“Then why do you inflict it on others?”

“The blood is flawed, but that is because it hasn’t been properly refined. I can slow the onset of the transformation, maybe even prevent it entirely, I’m sure of it.” Laurence steps closer to Willem, head high. “You’ve seen what the blood can do. It’s a medical miracle. The amount of good it could do in this world can hardly be overstated. How could I keep it secret?”

“If you were truly doing this for the good of the world, you wouldn’t be experimenting on innocent civilians.”

Laurence… doesn’t flinch, exactly, but rather goes uncharacteristically still. His chin drops a little. Willem notices, and his frown deepens. “Yes, I know about your experiments in the fishing hamlet. I’m sure that’s where you’re going now… Do they even know what you’re doing to them? Have you told them anything, or are you just using them?”

“Let’s go, Brador,” Laurence says icily, turning on his heel. His heeled shoes click loudly against the paved stone.

Brador takes a step back to follow and Willem’s eyes are suddenly upon him, piercing. The provost’s thin lips tremble, as if he’s about to speak, and his face contorts briefly in some emotion – rage? grief? – but at length he turns away without another word.

Brador has to jog to catch up to Laurence. He’s not looking back to see if Brador’s following.

“He’s not going to stop us?” Brador asks, as soon as they’re out of earshot.

“How would he?” Laurence snorts. “He can barely walk. _You_ can fell a silverbeast in a single well-placed swing.”

Brador looks stricken. “I wouldn’t…”

“Oh, relax. I’m not about to ask you to strike an old man.” 

They’ve reached the coach. The driver doesn’t ask any questions, just opens the door. Laurence puts a hand on Brador’s arm and offers a brief, strained smile before stepping up into the carriage. Brador follows after, turning words over in his mind. He didn’t mean to accuse Laurence of wanting to – to kill Willem, or hurt him, or… No. Laurence wouldn’t. Brador’s the violent-minded one, the bloody-knuckled boy in the schoolyard, the tomb prospector who comes home stained in beast viscera. Laurence is something else entirely. But he thinks for too long, and the moment for apologies passes.

“Heavens knows he gets on my nerves at times, but he’s still a brilliant scholar,” Laurence continues in an undertone. His tone is light, but Brador can see how he folds his hands, white-knuckled, in his lap. “His work on the ascension of the mind is not without merit. I suppose I’ll look into it myself… it seems complementary to my own research, doesn’t it?”

The words spill out before Brador can remember to be tactful. “Do you hate him?”

“No. …Yes.” Laurence turns away. His long hair is loose tonight, and hides his face. “It’s not so simple. I will always love him for giving me the tools and knowledge to get me this far, but I will never forgive him for disavowing my work. Perhaps I am ungrateful. Despite everything, I am merely human.”

It’s silent for a moment. Brador wrestles with himself, forces himself to speak. It’s like prying open the jaws of a bear trap. Being _genuine_ doesn’t come naturally. “You’re not ungrateful, only driven. I know how much this means to you… how much this could change the world. You’re just doing what’s necessary.”

“Yes,” Laurence says quietly. “What’s necessary.”

He keeps his face turned away, looking out the carriage window. Brador watches him for a while, until it’s obvious the conversation is over. The rest of the journey passes in silence.

 

They arrive at the hamlet late in the morning, and something is wrong.

Gehrman and Maria are waiting for them when they arrive. Maria is tight-lipped and pale – paler than usual, that is, which is quite a feat – and she keeps looking around restlessly, like she’s geared for a fight. Gehrman is subdued and stands behind her with his shoulders rounded like a guilty man expecting a blow. Brador knows trouble when he sees it. He keeps a hand on the mace at his hip.

“Laurence, you’d best come see this,” Maria says. “There’s something on the shore.”

Laurence tilts his head, bird-like. “Is it a beast?”

Maria only shakes her head. “You should see for yourself.”

She leads them through the hamlet. The inhabitants stop what they’re doing and watch as they pass. Maybe it’s Brador’s imagination, but some of them look… odd. Something is wrong with this man’s jaw, and this woman’s eyes are too far apart. A gnawing feeling of dread settles in the pit of his stomach. Laurence, walking a few steps in front of him, seems unbothered, but Laurence has always been difficult to read.

The hamlet, Brador notices, is filled to the brim with phantasms. People pass hauling bucketfuls of the slimy, writhing things. He catches a glimpse into the dark interior of a hut and sees the gleam of thousands and thousands of pearly eggs. He thinks he sees something else as well, large and pale and crawling, but the door is nudged closed by a stony-faced villager.

They stop at the mouth of a tunnel. Wet, rank air wafts out of it, stinking of ocean and fish and something indescribably organic. Sweet rot. An elderly woman emerges, glaring at them with dull, suspicious eyes. Maria says something to her quietly.

The woman shuffles over to Laurence and looks him up and down. Slowly, she says, “We will show you. But you must not approach her.”

“Who? What are you showing me?” Impatience bleeds into Laurence’s voice. He turns to Gehrman, who’s been silent since their arrival. “What am I about to see?”

It takes a moment for Gehrman to answer, like he’s trying to find his voice. His mouth works silently. “A… thing washed up on the shore. A few days ago, so they claim.”

“We think it’s a Great One,” he whispers, barely loud enough to hear.

“It came from the ocean?” It’s like a flame’s been lit in Laurence. His eyes are bright and sharp. “How is that possible?”

“She is the great mother Kos,” the woman says, as if that means anything. She backs into the tunnel, beckoning them. “Come.”

The tunnel slopes downward. Their guide produces a lantern from somewhere in her robes and lights it, but the illumination is fickle and leaves large swathes of the uneven ground in shadow. Brador holds Laurence’s elbow to steady him. At some point the whistling of the wind turns into voices, and the voices are singing.

“Burial rites,” Laurence says, leaning into Brador’s grip. His mouth is close enough to Brador’s ear that he can feel the warmth of Laurence’s breath. “They’re mourning. For this Kos?”

The tunnel opens up suddenly to the shore and Brador’s gaze is drawn irresistibly to the thing, Kos, like how the eye is naturally drawn to the bright color of blood in a wound. There is an indescribable wrongness about the entire scene. The creature’s body is a white so pale it seems to glow, a gleaming gash on the grayish sand and green sea. The singing villagers, all women, are on their knees before the creature praying. Brador tears his attention away from the scene long enough to look at Laurence, who’s gone completely rigid. Brador can see the whites all around his dark brown irises.

Laurence jerks abruptly forward. Their guide is in front of him in an instant.

“You must not approach her,” she says urgently. “Her spirit lingers. It must be pacified.”

“You killed her,” Laurence says, voice cracking. To Brador’s astonishment, there are tears in his eyes.

“She was dying when she washed up on the shore, and chose to bless us with her body.”

“Liar,” Laurence whispers, or so Brador thinks – he says it so quietly it’s hard to tell, after the fact, whether he spoke at all. “Let me pass. If her spirit yet lingers, I can commune with it.”

Laurence tries to shove past the woman and she grabs his wrist, raising a fist to strike. Brador doesn’t think. In the space of a breath, he has a knife to her throat.

“Take your hand off him,” Brador says, low and sure. 

The singing has stopped. Dozens of pairs of eyes watch them. Slowly, deliberately, the old woman releases Laurence’s wrist. But her eyes burn with hate.

“You will regret this,” she promises.

Brador’s certain he won’t. He’s never been so certain of anything in his life. In one shining crystalline moment, on the keen edge of the knife as it grazed the old woman’s throat, it has all become clear to him: who he is, where he belongs, what he should do. Brador goes to Laurence’s side. 

“Thank you, Brador.” Laurence is ashen, wide-eyed, but resolute. “Gehrman, Maria. Please keep an eye on the villagers as I examine the… body. Brador, come with me. I won’t waste this chance.”

The old woman spits at Laurence’s feet and starts for the tunnel. Gehrman moves to block her, but Laurence shakes his head.

“Let her go. We are not holding anyone hostage.” He stares after the old woman for a moment, and then sweeps his gaze across the rest of the villagers kneeling on the beach. He takes deep breaths, as if to calm himself. “We mean no harm to you, nor to the Great One Kos. I only wish to examine her, to understand what happened, and if possible, to commune with her, for she is sacred to us.”

Silence. Sullen, glassy eyes. Laurence sighs and approaches the body, his heeled dress shoes crunching noisily in the sand. Brador follows just a step behind, still holding the knife. The thing that drifted ashore is rubbery and translucent like a slug; light seems to penetrate into the skin and bounce around within it instead of reflecting off, making it almost appear to glow. Laurence kneels by its tentacled head and leans in close – and gasps.

“My God. My God!” Laurence’s voice trembles. “Brador, look. She has a face. A human face.”

He doesn’t want to get any closer to the thing, but he gets on his knees in the sand and looks. Up close, there is a subtle mucous visible on the surface of the creature’s skin that gives it a pearly, rainbowish sheen. It also stinks to high heaven. Laurence places a hand between his shoulder blades and pushes him down – and he sees. Under the drooping, rubbery hood and wild mass of tentacles is the face of a woman, or at least a nose and mouth of one, since the bulging flesh of her neck and body drape over where her eyes should be like a nun’s habit. The expression on the face is oddly serene, as if only sleeping. He grips his knife tighter, thoroughly unsettled by the thought.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Laurence insists. His hand is warm, burning a brand in Brador’s back. “This is incredible, this is everything I hoped for. But is it the gods who created us in their image, or is it our worship that shapes the gods? Oh, Willem would have a fit over this.”

Brador feels like a child trying to keep up with the stride of a grown man. Laurence is doing what he does best, connecting barely-there threads between science and theology, weaving them together into a complete tapestry. “Which do you think it is?”

“Both, of course.” Laurence smiles, slyly. “Willem is obsessed with fitting things into boxes. Beast or god, influencer or the influenced. But these things aren’t mutually exclusive. Worship is a two-way street. It does beg the question, however, whether Kos has shaped the villagers in some way.”

“Some of them did look odd,” Brador offers. “Something about their faces.”

“Is that so?” Laurence fixes Brador with a thoughtful stare. “I’ll have to look for that later while collecting results from the blood ministrations. Assuming they allow me to examine them after this.”

Laurence turns his attention back to the creature. He extends a hand towards it – and then pauses.

“Give me your mace.”

Brador hands it over. Laurence takes it (nearly fumbles it at first – “this is heavy!”) and gingerly prods the creature’s side with the end. When nothing untoward happens, he touches the thing’s skin with the tip of a finger, and then rests his whole palm on to the creature’s flank – and jerks away, as if burned. 

“She’s warm,” he whispers. His hand moves, touches the cheek of the thing’s eerily human face. “But not here. Not everywhere. Why would she be warm? I don’t understand.”

“Laurence.” Gehrman’s appeared behind them, quiet as always even on the coarse sand. “That woman is coming back. I think she’s brought reinforcements.”

“Yes, of course.” He pulls away from the body reluctantly. “I didn’t handle this very well, did I? …I’ll speak to them.”

The old woman has indeed brought reinforcements. A dozen or so villagers holding sharp fishing spears. This time Laurence goes with them good-naturedly when they demand he get away from the thing on the shore, and he smiles and asks about the next shipment of phantasms to the college and how their sick fishermen are recovering after the blood treatments. He lets himself be lead away and back into the village. From then until evening Brador is bored out of his mind as Laurence draws blood and administers blood, prods at strange slugs, and asks surreptitious questions about Kos. But at one point Laurence turns to Brador and gives him a secretive little look.

Brador doesn’t doubt that Laurence will get what he wants one way or another. He always does.

As the day draws to a close Laurence asks, demurely, whether he and his companions might stay the night, being rather tired from their overnight journey to the hamlet. The old woman gives him a sharp look, but they’re allowed two small huts between the four of them to sleep in.

Laurence smiles.

 

That night, Brador dreams.

In his dreams he hears a sound like something unfathomably immense dragging itself along the ground, or perhaps it’s just the ocean crashing against the shore. There’s a feminine voice speaking but he can’t make out the words. All around him is sound, and the sound coalesces into shapes, terrifying and unnatural shapes contorting in the water of the ocean. The sound of the ocean swallows them up, the sound of the ocean will not stop getting louder, filling his body with a dense cold feeling. He thinks he’s drowning. But gently, like being lulled asleep. The unfathomably immense thing is close, so close, dragging itself along the ocean floor in a horrible cacophony of scraping, like the crash of the ocean getting closer and closer. The voice is right by his ear now and it begins to scream, and the scream is louder than the scraping and the ocean and it’s loud enough to drown out the world, to cover everything until all he knows is the sound of screaming, and he tries to cover his ears but his hands won’t move, or maybe he doesn’t have hands anymore—

—or even a body—

He’s shaken roughly awake, but when he opens his eyes he only sees dark water. Laurence is calling his name from somewhere far away. Brador clutches the hand on his shoulder, struggling to breathe. It slips from his grasp – no, no, the dark water churns and bubbles and it rises up to meet him, or he is falling, and—

The shape of a rune blazes in the center of his vision and the water falls away, revealing the dark interior of the hut. Laurence’s face, drawn and pale, peers down at Brador; his slender fingers hold up a paper with the rune hastily inscribed in it. Brador looks at it, trying to control his breathing and the rapid beating of his heart.

“You heard her voice. Kos.” It’s not a question. “I heard it as well. You’d better keep this, for protection.”

Brador sits up and takes the rune numbly, holding it to his chest. “But she’s dead.”

“Are you sure?” Laurence levels a long, patient look at him. His eyes have a dull gleam in the darkness of the hut. Sticky-looking, like dates left in the sun.

“I don’t know.” A spark of irritation. Laurence is always asking these sorts of questions: things he already knows the answer to, probing queries that only serve to humiliate Brador in his ignorance. They’re never rhetorical. “How do you know it was Kos? I just heard screaming.”

“Screaming? I was able to make out words. Not in any human language, of course, but Caryll might make sense of them with her runes.” Laurence shuffles closer, snatching up a lamp from the ground. It takes him a few tries to light it in the dark, but when the flame springs to life it drives away the lingering visions of dark water behind Brador’s eyelids. “I think Kos was trying to speak to us. It must have been overwhelming for you. The voices of the Great Ones contain arcane power. It’s fortunate I woke you when I did.”

“I don’t understand.” Brador curls around the rune, willing it to drive away the cold crushing feeling of the ocean. “She’s dead. Her body is on the beach.”

“The Great Ones aren’t like us. Who knows what death means for a being like Kos? Perhaps the body of a Great One is only one small part of its being – the essence, the spirit of the Great Ones live on even when the body decays.” Laurence is leaning into his space now, an intent look on his face. “Come here. Let me look at you.”

Laurence takes him by the jaw and tilts his head up. His fingers are warm, feverishly warm. Brador recalls the feeling of Laurence’s hand on his back earlier. Was he always this warm? Brador thinks, half-deliriously, that if Laurence were ever cut open like the beasts on his operating tables he would be filled with pure light and fire.

“Focus here,” he says softly, waving a finger in front of Brador’s face. He focuses on it. “The Great Ones, Brador, obey wholly different laws of nature than ourselves. They can change the world around them simply by existing. Being contacted by one directly is exceedingly dangerous. Had I known Kos would reach out, I would have prepared you more adequately. …Open your mouth, if you would.”

Brador opens his mouth obediently. Laurence runs the pad of his thumb over his teeth. Brador is uncomfortably aware of how much he is salivating, of how close Laurence is, of the way the lamplight gilds the elegant planes of his face. He fights back an irrational urge to bite down, or maybe close his lips around the finger, to latch onto Laurence and not let go.

“Very good. There should be no lasting effects.” Laurence’s thumb slides up, skimming over Brador’s lip. His breath hitches, near-imperceptibly, embarrassingly.

“You can close your mouth now,” Laurence adds, amused.

“This is a game to you, isn’t it,” Brador manages after a moment. “You’re toying with me.”

“Do you really think that? My dear Brador.”

He says it with such affection that Brador’s throat closes up. Laurence’s hand slides down to cup Brador’s jaw again. His thumb is still slightly damp with saliva, leaving a cold trail along Brador’s cheek. This feels somehow obscene. He can hear the blood rushing in his ears and Laurence is so close, looking at him with an indescribable light in his eyes, looking at him in a way that flays him open. He can’t stand it.

His hand seems to reach forth of its own volition. Laurence’s hair isn’t as soft as he’d imagined (and he’s thought of this more often than he’d like; even in the privacy of his own mind, this admission draws forth a well of deep shame) but that makes it all the more real. Laurence smiles at him like he’s been waiting for this and that’s enough to break him, to think that Laurence has wanted him. He leans forward, or maybe Laurence pulls him in, or both happen at once.

What did he think it would be like? Like a sandstorm that strips the flesh from him until he’s nothing but pitted bone and an exposed heart. Instead a warm and heavy feeling suffuses him. He’s hyperaware of everything, the heat of Laurence’s mouth on his, the clammy thumb stroking his jaw, the short fine hairs he can feel on the back of Laurence’s neck. Laurence makes a quiet sound into his mouth and pushes closer until Brador puts an arm around his waist and he marvels at the slenderness of Laurence’s body, pressing his fingers in until he finds a bony hip. Laurence’s free hand wanders over Brador’s chest, plucking idly at the buttons on his vest. He makes no real effort to undo them but the threat puts Brador in a sudden panic. It’s not the physical nakedness that frightens him so much as the thought of being seen. Whether there’s anything to be seen is irrelevant; the possibility is the punishment, the very idea of exposure, of some terrible hidden shame. He trusts Laurence, of course. But it’s one thing to trust a man, and another to put his finger on the trigger of a loaded gun and point it at your own head.

Brador breaks the kiss and moves down. Laurence makes a questioning noise that’s cut off into a soft exhale as Brador sets his mouth to his neck, pressing his lips to where Laurence’s life pulses beneath his skin. He slides the hand on Laurence’s hip up under Laurence’s shirt and the victory is not that Laurence’s hand falls away from his buttons, the victory is that Laurence lets him do this.

“Still think this is a game?” Laurence asks breathlessly.

“Maybe,” Brador admits, feeling his way up Laurence’s spine. Revealing the skin of Laurence’s stomach as he drags the shirt upwards sends a thrill through him. Like he’s uncovering some exceptional secret.

“I wouldn’t be so cruel,” Laurence murmurs. “You’ve been good to me.”

He desperately wants to be good to Laurence in this as well. It’s easy to forget in the college where everyone knows Laurence’s name, but out here on the shore of a vast sea, surrounded by strangers, he realizes he’s all that Laurence has. Willem has abandoned him, and Gehrman and Maria aren’t privy to the things Brador knows about Laurence. His changeable moods, his private bouts of depression or mania. Almost childishly, he’s laid a mental claim on Laurence: _I know him best. He trusts me._ The proof of Laurence’s trust is laid out under Brador’s searching fingers. Maybe that’s what makes this so tender, even in a drafty hut, surrounded by the stink of the sea.

Brador abandons Laurence’s shirt and instead reaches for his pants. He’s half-hard beneath his neat trousers; this discovery sends a shock of arousal through Brador. _Just as human as the rest of us, then,_ he thinks with something like relief. 

Laurence watches with half-lidded eyes as Brador draws him out and gives him a few cautious strokes. It’s not his first time with a man but the other tomb prospectors are – rough, with each other. That’s the problem with doing violence for a living: it creeps into every aspect of your life. Brador wants to be gentle with Laurence. Slowly, he lowers himself down to press his mouth to the tip. Laurence’s hips jerk in an aborted motion – Brador glances up and catches the hungry look on his face, cheeks flushed, lips parted. Brador dips down again with renewed purpose and licks a long stripe from base to tip, feeling Laurence twitch and stiffen against his tongue. 

“Brador,” Laurence says, strained.

Brador looks up but Laurence puts a hand on Brador’s head, fingers curling against his scalp, and directs him imperiously back downward. Brador follows easily. He would do anything to hear Laurence say his name like that again. This time he takes Laurence into his mouth and is rewarded with a stifled moan. Brador starts up a rhythm, taking Laurence deeper each time until his nose touches dark curls and Laurence is curled around him, panting, the hand on Brador’s head pulling mindlessly at his hair. Brador holds Laurence down by his hips and swallows around him, determined to give him his pleasure, and Laurence gasps, “Brador,” which is all the warning Brador gets before he’s coming with a choked-off whine. Brador swallows again, keeping his lips sealed around him, letting Laurence ride it out slowly. It’s Laurence that eventually pulls him off once he’s had enough.

Laurence lies in silence for a few moments, loose-limbed, breathing hard. (Brador is rather pleased with himself. It’s not often he can render Laurence mute.) At length, he reaches half-heartedly for Brador’s crotch, at which point Brador stops him, catching his wrist.

“You haven’t finished,” Laurence insists, but without much force. He has a lazy and fucked-out look to him that Brador decides he likes very much.

“It’s fine. Really,” he adds, when Laurence gives him a suspicious look. He doesn’t think he can handle Laurence’s attentions. Their closeness has already rubbed him raw like sandpaper.

“Next time, then,” Laurence decides, and then yawns. He covers his mouth with a hand, looking surprised at himself. “Oh – you’ve tired me out.”

Brador fights back a smile. This side of Laurence, so content and unguarded, is incredibly endearing. “In a good way, I hope.”

“Don’t let me fall asleep, Brador. There’s something I mean to do tonight.” He’s tucking himself back into his trousers, fixing his clothes and mussed hair. “Our dreams confirmed what I already suspected. There’s something else going on in this hamlet that Kos was trying to tell us about, I’m certain of it. The villagers didn’t want us to look too closely at her corpse. They must be hiding something.”

And just like that, Laurence is as distant as he ever was. Brador clamps down on a vague sense of disappointment. It isn’t like he was expecting to cuddle – he isn’t sure what he was expecting, really. This entire development feels monumental to him. He supposes he just wants some way to confirm that Laurence feels the same.

“I have to examine the body more closely,” Laurence is saying, but then catches sight of something in Brador’s expression that makes him pause. “Brador, is something wrong?”

“No, nothing.” A flimsy lie.

Laurence comes to him and puts a hand on his cheek. He’s never touched Brador with such ease or familiarity. Brador is pathetically grateful for it.

“I try to do right by you, Brador, but you don’t make it easy.” Laurence speaks gently, like one would to a cornered animal. “Tell me what you want.”

 _I want you to stay,_ Brador thinks, nonsensically. Because Laurence hasn’t gone anywhere, really.

Instead he says: “I want to help you.”

A flicker of surprise passes over Laurence’s face. Then he smiles. “Ah, Brador. Loyal as ever. I don’t expect to be caught, but it would put my mind to rest if you were with me.”

And so Brador puts his coat back on, and takes his knife and gun and mace. (“You’re a walking armory,” Laurence jokes, but without malice. There’s something warm in his eyes as he looks Brador up and down.) Gauzy clouds filter the moonlight into a thin silver trickle, casting the hamlet in blurry grayscale like a daguerreotype. It’s light enough to see by in any case, which worries Brador. For once, he wishes Laurence were not in the habit of wearing white.

“Don’t worry,” Laurence says, taking Brador by the arm. “They don’t sleep where they work. The huts near the tunnel all house phantasms, not people. It should be deserted.”

The hamlet is silent and still. Laurence seems to know exactly where to go, which roads to take to stay out of sight. Brador wonders how many times he’s been to the hamlet in secret, whether he was watching for these routes the whole time. They reach the mouth of the tunnel without incident, but it’s there that Laurence pauses.

“Be careful,” he says. “They may have posted a guard.”

“What was your plan, if I hadn’t come with you?”

“I thought I would have to convince you,” Laurence confesses. “Either you or Gehrman. Maria would have refused me.”

“But not Gehrman?”

“Gehrman rarely refuses me anything,” Laurence says simply.

This time there is no singing in the tunnel, only the lonely whistling of the wind. They have to feel their way step by step in the darkest parts, steadying themselves against the slimy walls. There is no guard. This strikes Brador as deeply strange. He’s not inclined to believe in luck.

The corpse of Kos looks just as it did earlier, shockingly white against the dark beach. Laurence lets out a soft exhale when he spots it, as if he’d been holding his breath all this time. He goes to it smiling, putting a hand on its rubbery flank and running his fingers up and down. He stops at a point midway down the creature’s body, pressing at it gently.

“Here,” he says. “It was no fluke; she’s still warm here. But how? Unless…”

Brador kneels beside him, looking at the spot Laurence is touching. He’s hesitant to make any assumptions about the thing’s anatomy, but it seems to be bulging strangely. And – just then – it seems to twitch.

“Give me the knife.”

“You’re going to cut it open?”

“I have to see,” Laurence says, as if that explains everything.

A sense of unease. Something is wrong here. Brador can’t explain how, but he knows that whatever is inside that rubbery flesh should be left alone. But he also knows that Laurence won’t be deterred. Nothing could ever steer Laurence from a course he set his mind to, save for himself. “Let me. It could be dangerous.”

Laurence is frowning, so Brador adds, “The hide is tough, you’ll need strength and a steady hand to make a clean cut. I can do it.”

With what seems like great reluctance, Laurence nods. He traces a finger along an invisible line. “Cut like this. Not too deep, Brador, we can’t risk hurting whatever’s in there.”

Brador takes his heavy knife and sets to work. The rainbow shimmer that was visible in the sunlight reveals itself to be a layer of smooth, transparent scales that flake away beneath the knife’s edge. The texture of the meat is like nothing he’s seen before. Strangely gelatinous and yet firm, with no visible blood vessels, and yet somehow, impossibly, it seems to bleed an oily silver substance. The skin is thicker than he expected and takes several attempts to cut through. Laurence watches it all with an air of barely-contained impatience, one hand on Brador’s shoulder in a white-knuckled grip.

“Just a little bit more,” he breathes, and then “—There!”

Brador’s cut through into the thing’s abdomen, or what passes for one. The flaps of meat gape open like a fish’s mouth. Through the pale lips he can see movement. Something similarly pale, writhing within. As the cold night air seeps into Kos’ flesh the thing suddenly thrashes, flipping itself over inside the cavity, and reaches out a five-fingered hand. It’s a person, there’s a person in there. But it can’t be. The skin on the hand is so white that it seems almost bluish in the moonlight.

The thing inside Kos begins to cry. A thin, hiccupping wail, undoubtedly the cry of a newborn human infant.

The last thing Brador sees before it all goes dark is a red, bloated moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spot the references..! i believe kos was heavily inspired by junji ito's "the thing that drifted ashore", and also this:
> 
> “the fishermen who witness the death-struggle of the huge animal, in front of the dying whale recite Namu Amida Butsu three times in chorus, and after that proceed to sing one of the so-called whale-songs in order to “pacify his soul” […] whale embryos found in the womb of their parent are extracted with the greatest care and interred like a human being with due respect and under special ceremonies”  
> Nelly Naumann: Whale and Fish Cult in Japan: A Basic Feature of Ebisu Worship


End file.
